Grief comes and goes throughout life, depending on situations and circumstances. Or so I have always believed. Today, however, I wonder if it ever really goes away at all. Maybe it just gets covered up, buried for a time, then it resurfaces, strengthened by collective accumulation.
Today I’m grieving the potential loss of my dog. This morning the vet didn’t think she’d survive the weekend. She has a sudden onset of diabetes, pancreatitis, failing liver and kidney function. She has other problems, he says, but without further testing he won’t know what they are. He doesn’t think it’s time to euthanize her. Not yet. He wants to wait and see if she’ll respond to treatment. So I wait, uncertain about how to proceed, about how to feel, about when to grieve.
That sentence looked silly as I typed it: “I’m grieving the potential loss of my dog.” A dog. My dog is sick and she’s dying. But she’s a dog. Part of me thinks I shouldn’t be so concerned over an animal, that I should have just a little perspective. She’s a dog. But I am concerned, more than I thought I ever could be. In thinking about this dog I love very much, this dog that is now in so much pain, I think about my mother, my mother who died a very painful and tragic death a few years ago. I think about the death of my marriage so long ago. I think about moving away from family and friends within the past six months. I think about my daughter, now grown and living on her own. I think about these life changes in life and how they elicit grief. And I grieve all over again.